New Nixon Tapes Show Watergate "Game Plan"

Fateful moments from the Watergate scandal that destroyed Richard Nixon's presidency are brought to light in a new collection of papers and tape recordings from that time.

Materials released by the Nixon Presidential Library on Tuesday show aides trying to head off a U.S. constitutional crisis and save a presidency after Nixon fired the Watergate special prosecutor and forced out the two top Justice Department officials in October 1973.

That crisis is known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

A memo from that episode, by Nixon adviser Kenneth Cole, outlines a "game plan" for survival.

The idea: Convince lawmakers that prosecutor Archibald Cox wanted an "unending crisis of the body politic" and needed to be removed. That did not work.

Click here to access the tapes from the Nixon Presidential Library Web site.